According to the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA), Colorado ranks seventh in the nation in overall energy production.

The state ranks ninth in crude oil production, fifth in natural gas and 11th in coal production, according to the EIA’s 2012 data.

But Colorado also is home to abundant renewable energy — ranking fifth nationwide in the amount of solar power generated by photovoltaic panels — 91 megawatts — according to the EIA.

And the state’s windy eastern plains place Colorado 12th in the nation in wind energy, with the potential to generate 25 times the amount of electricity consumed in the state, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

Colorado has a long history of energy production — the second oil well in the country was drilled near Florence, about 100 miles south of Denver, in 1881 and has produced more than 15 million barrels of oil, according to the Colorado Geological Survey.

Colorado’s oil and gas industry supports more than 102,000 jobs — including about 42,000 direct jobs in the oil and gas fields as well as in downtown Denver skyscrapers, according to the Colorado Oil & Gas Association (COGA), a trade group representing the industry.

“These are high-paying jobs, with the average salary double the average Colorado salary statewide,” said Doug Flancers, COGA spokesman.

The industry also contributed about $1.1 billion in taxes to state and local governments, he said.

Although Colorado’s oil and gas industry was battered by the economic downturn — the number of operating drilling rigs statewide fell from a high of 138 in September 2008 to a low of 38 in July 2009 — things have started to turn around.

“The industry is on an uptick,” Flanders said. “We don’t have as many rigs as we did in 2008, but we’re seeing growth — and quite a bit of interest in the Niobrara (formation) because liquids is where a lot of operators are gravitating. We’ve seen the Niobrara become a growth area.”

The Niobrara formation is a rock layer thousands of feet underground that runs from New Mexico, north through Colorado’s Front Range, into Wyoming. Geologists have long known the layer held oil, but new advancement in drilling technology have make it economically accessible.

Colorado’s natural gas industry started to boom on the western side of the state in the early 2000s through the use of directional drilling. Natural gas production has risen a total of 20 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to the EIA.

And in the last few years, the industry’s next-generation technology — horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) — have cracked open the Niobrara formation buried under the Denver-Julesburg Basin. Companies have poured billions of dollars into the area that experts say could hold a total of the oil, natural gas and natural-gas liquids equivalent to 2 billion barrels of oil.

And new renewable-energy technologies — as well as a state mandate that Colorado’s investor-owned utilities get 30 percent of their power from renewable resources by 2020 — have boosted Colorado’s production and use of energy from wind and solar sources.

Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Inc. (NYSE: XEL), the state’s largest electricity and natural gas provider, has about 1,771 megawatts on its Colorado grid — enough to support the power demands of about 442,750 homes. The utility expects to add another 400 megawatts in Colorado by year-end. AWEA has ranked Xcel the No. 1 utility in the country for wind power for eight consecutive years.

The state also is home to four wind turbine manufacturing plants that make blades, nacelles and towers for Danish company Vestas Wind Systems, one of the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturers. As of mid-October, the company employed about 1,200 at plants in Windsor, north of Denver; Brighton, a northeastern suburb of Denver; and Pueblo, in southern Colorado.

But Colorado’s wind industry was battered this year due to the scheduled expiration, at the end of 2012, of the federal wind Production Tax Credit (PTC). The tax credit pays wind farm operators about $22 per megawatt hour of energy produced. Vestas, and other companies in the manufacturing supply chain, have laid off workers during the year as orders for new wind farms have slowed.

On the solar front, “Colorado is widely regarded as national leader in solar innovation,” said Neal Lurie, executive director of the Denver-based Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association (COSEIA).

Colorado’s solar industry also is working with local governments to streamline the permitting process for solar power systems in different jurisdictions.

The federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden researches new technologies, and has drawn many companies to Colorado in order to be near the lab’s scientists. Colorado’s solar businesses employ about 6,000 people in the state, according to COSEIA.

“Many technologies have been developed at NREL, and now that solar photovoltaic module costs have come down 75 percent in the last three years, that’s brought solar within reach of Main Street Coloradans and Americans,” Lurie said.